Ripple Effect
by hisuigreen
Summary: They were supposed to have been the perfect team, the second coming of the Sannin. How it had all gone to pieces, Sakura would never quite understand. Sakura-centric, Team 7 emphasis.
1. Prologue

A/N: Yet another Sakura-centric development story. I've decided to put a twist on her usual characterization by making her a little bitchier. Let's hope she's still endearing.

I'm still in the process of re-writing UB because I couldn't stand reading the old chapters.

Also, this story falls in the odd canyon between head canon and AU. The time stamping should be incredibly obvious though, so I'm not going to even going to bother with a blurb on that. It will be written in 3rd person limited, and I'm trying to stay true to the characters. I appreciate any advice.

After the complete bastardization of Kishimoto's female characters (oh, that ending), I needed to create my own sort of canon. All of the main characters (Sakura, Sasuke, Naruto) will receive proper character development.

* * *

Prologue

She had made it.

She had made it through that stupid forest, past those creepy weird guys, and the scariest snake-like freak that she'd ever seen. Granted, she didn't see snake-like guys particularly often, but still. The guy was shiver-inducing by anyone's standards, tossing out jōnin level jutsus between taunts with little more than a flick of an inhumanly purple tongue. Memory of the scene made her shudder, the movement sending her already aching muscles into a small series of painful spasms.

She glared down at her legs, wrapped almost thigh-high in red-speckled white bandages she had managed to apply after stumbling into the stadium. She couldn't wrap any more layers without badly affecting her mobility, and she wasn't enough of a masochist to re-wrap the damn thing all over again. Glancing around though, she realized that she had come out on top for once-most of the candidates were either in hospital rooms, having failed in obtaining both scrolls or had forfeited their right to continue and wrapped in enough gauze to mummify while waiting for a room, or attempting self-administered first aid with the kits the nurses- _medics_ , she corrected herself after recalling a lecture-had given, as none of the genin were allowed professional help before the preliminaries.

She frowned. Just the thought of having to go through preliminaries in addition to exam itself was sobering, to be sure. It wasn't as if the Forest of Death was a walk in the park; its name had to have significance, didn't it? Why should they be punished for other teams' lucky successes? It was unfair in the truest sense of the word, and she was still having trouble coming to grasps with it.

She glanced over toward Naruto, whose mood seemed to, as the minutes rolled by, frequently switch between excited anticipation toward the competition and anxious antipathy toward the red-haired Sand-nin freak they had been so unfortunate to meet earlier. Though if she really thought about it, as far as strange people went, he wasn't _that_ bad, minus the psychotic killing intent and especially compared to the other members of her team. She just couldn't remember his name.

Geren? Fara? A presence suddenly registered at the corner of her mind, and she whipped around, only to find the boy in question staring at her. Their eyes, however, didn't meet. His jade eyes, so freakishly similar to her own, looked distant, almost as if he was staring beyond her. Feeling a little foolish, she hesitantly followed his gaze.

He was staring at Naruto.

She felt oddly angry all of the sudden. While she didn't particularly _like_ Naruto, that didn't mean that she was comfortable with the interest. Interest, she knew, that would result only in casualty. She almost felt like going over to warn him, but doubted that her warning would have any effect on the blond, beyond causing the conflict to grow more open and dangerous.

She wouldn't lie and say that she didn't feel helpless right now. Sasuke-kun was suffering and-she shivered, recalling the tingling she felt when his hand grasped hers- didn't want to be helped, and Naruto was a idiot who couldn't be helped, and she was just a girl that... that wasn't able to help. The hand of cards she had been dealt just didn't lend itself to her feeling particularly confident at anything. Why hadn't she read more? _Known_ more?

The answer hit her hard. There was no way she could have prepared for this. Life just wasn't predictable, unless you were Nara.

And yet, they all had to try anyway, had to attempt to beat the odds, when there was little to be gained and everything to be lost. She glared down at her leg again, willing it not to scar. She wasn't old enough to branded.

That fate was reserved for other people, she thought absent-mindedly as she stared at an unlucky former exam hopeful, whose limbs looked beyond repair. A dark-haired woman kept on examining the misshapen flesh, as if a calculating scare would make the impossible possible.

Looking heavenward, the pink-hair girl snorted. Indeed. _As if_. Even if Ms. Dark-Haired managed to repair his limbs, he'd never be able to move the same again, and probably never be able to use chakra, if any of the books she had read were true. She flexed her own hand, reveling in the feel of her own chakra running through her veins. It was amazing to think that the sensation had been foreign at one point in her life.

She breathed deeply, trying to calm herself. Everything would be okay. Someone would help them. They wouldn't die.

She could feel the lie in her mind, a smidgen of dirt on a clear expanse of tile. She could no longer be placated as if she were a child. She had seen first hand the creep that had defiled Sasuke-kun. Orochimaru, she remembered with disgust, that snake. To have the audacity to _bite_ him and just... leave? Just... leave them scared shitless, shaking like children? The image of purple skin would never leave her mind, she knew. Not that much ever did, but this image _burned_.

As soon as she thought about it, the very image came to the forefront of her mind, almost causing her to fall off the wooden bench she had settled herself on. Realising that she was shaking, she began taking deep breaths again, breaking up the bunches in her chakra flow. After a minute, she was able to think calmly again.

They all sat like prey.


	2. Chapter 1

A/N: Thanks for the support that everyone has given! I appreciate your comments. I'm not going to even attempt to promise that this is going to end up epic length, but I actually have this one sketched out. Yay me.

I will, however, reiterate that this fic will be written in limited 3rd person, and Sakura will be the **only** narrator of this story. She's also (at this moment) a thirteen year old who thinks she's mature.

* * *

Chapter 1

Everything had gone to flames. Down to hell. To shit, as far as she was concerned. That was why it had taken almost three weeks for the village of Konoha to properly commemorate their fallen Hokage. She wasn't even sure what exactly had happened since no one had explained it to her, but it seemed like Orochimaru had killed him. Or at least, that was the short form of the tale that they were making public.

She stared out at the stiff rows of black that extended maybe a half mile on all sides of her. Even Naruto, who stood to her left, was appropriately somber, having not said a single thing since the ceremony had begun. She had been afraid he would break into loud, breaking sobs and disturb everyone else, but the tears leaked from his eyes in a steady, silent stream, the uncharacteristic silence broken only they collided with the muddy ground. Sasuke-kun was easily the stone-cold version of that silence, though she didn't dare turn to confirm his usual flat expression. His mood had been nothing short of thunderous toward her lately, despite her countless apologies. The only thing that stopped her from breaking down into tears upon each rejection was the knowledge that he had become like this toward everyone, especially those without the force or authority to distract him from his brooding. Kakashi-sensei was the only person she personally knew who had managed to make him speak in complete sentences after the event, and had, for once, showed up on time to an important occasion, though currently he stood closer to the casket near the other jōnin sensei, his silvery white hair a shining beacon in the sea of black.

It was safe to say that everyone, shinobi and civilian alike, had been at least startled by the village's loss. While likely less than a tenth of the village had actually gone to the funeral itself, she had no doubt that there would be a steady stream of visitors to show their appreciation for months afterward. The only question that remained was who was to take over the helm. As a genin, she wasn't privy to much more than the average civilian-possibly less, she supposed, considering that civilians were at least allowed to openly gossip about such affairs. Shinobi were held by a different statute of laws, though she was well-aware that if one's rank was high enough, the village was willing to ignore all but the worst offenses.

What she had been able to hear, however, had admittedly surprised her. They were bringing back one of the legendary Sannin to take the lead. The Senju princess. A woman who made the history books in a world where men wrote them. Not that she thought that anything would change; Konoha was a giant machine, and its cogs ran with or without the almost decorative switch that sat upon the top of it.

Yes, Konoha would be fine. The only thing that really worried at her at the moment was Sasuke-kun, who, while never having been particularly receptive to her advances (she was willing to admit the obvious), had never shut her out like this before. The last time she had even touched him had been during exams, when he had shut down her plea for help on his behalf. She desperately wanted to confront him, let him know that she was still there for him, that whatever had happened during the Gaara confrontation wouldn't change that. Positive reinforcement. She had been told that ages ago, and the philosophy had its uses.

But she couldn't. Not just as a teammate. Teammates just didn't do that sort of thing. Not even teammates like Naruto.

* * *

"Hey Forehead."

"Pig." She replied flatly, looking up from her lunch that she had gotten from the hospital cafeteria. She almost regretted doing so though, confronted with easily one of the most beautiful faces of their generation. The girl's sleek blonde ponytail fell perfectly over one of her slim shoulders as she slid her bag off her shoulders. To this day, she still didn't know why Ino had chosen to become friends with someone like her. Pity, maybe. She had been a pathetic child, friendless and clanless and without the personality to overcome those barriers.

The blonde sat down next to the seat in which she had placed her bag, crossing her legs and settling in, her posture the perfect mix of primly straight and casually lounging. Occasionally Sakura wished that she could sit like that, like she owned the place, but it was something that felt distinctly out of her reach, just like Sasuke-kun. Or chūnin. It had been a miracle that she had even managed to tie the girl as it was, even if she hated to admit it.

"So how have things been going?" Ino asked as she took out her own bento.

"Okay, I guess." Sakura sipped at her tea in a way she hoped looked kind of dainty. "Not much to do until everyone recovers."

"I feel that," Ino said before taking the first bite of her meal. She swallowed. "Shika doesn't even have that excuse and he refuses to do anything. Training has been such a pain lately, that lazy bastard." Her face softened the slightest bit. "But at least Choji's completely recovered. He's still got to go in for regular check-ups though."

Sakura didn't say anything, only putting down her tea bottle to shove another bite of her half-finished meal into her mouth. Perhaps Sasuke-kun's brooding was beginning to catch.

"What's wrong? You seem almost morose." The lightness to her tone faded to worry almost immediately, and Sakura felt the slightest bit guilty.

"It's not that Pig.. I'm just a little worried. Both of them still haven't been released." She had been visiting Sasuke-kun everyday, regardless of whether he had allowed her to see him.

"Is Sasuke-kun okay?" Ino asked in some tone that Sakura couldn't quite decipher.

"That's the thing Ino," the blonde perked up, "I.." she dropped her voice to a whisper, "don't think he's doing well."

Ino just shrugged. "Tsunade-sama is in charge of his case, isn't she?"

"It's not that.." Sakura trailed off, feeling like she was eight all over again, her ability to express herself completely stripped. She looked down at her hands, to the nails she finally managed to stop chewing. When she looked up again, Ino was still looking at her in between bites of food. It would have been uncomfortable, if something inside her hadn't warmed at the side, her vocal chords slowly unfreezing.

"He's angry all the time." The visible effort it took Ino to not roll her eyes was visible, and Sakura felt herself smile just a little. "Not like that. It's different. He's angry at _everyone_. Kakashi-sensei, Naruto... me."

She could barely bring herself to look into Ino's eyes, picking up her tea as a barrier.

"You know.. it's just a rumor, but I heard that.." Ino's eyes were serious.

"It's not like I'm going to tell anyone, Pig," she said lightly as she took a sip, trying to assure the blonde that she was fine. Which she was. It wasn't like she had anyone to tell anyway. She highly doubted that her aunt was interested in the daily ongings of shinobi life.

Ino didn't look particularly convinced, but the importance of what she had to say had apparently overruled her worry of Sakura's emotional stability. Which, she thought absently, was pretty significant considering how the girl had walked on eggshells around her after exams. Believing that you'd found out your best friend had an inner personality that she refused to let out tended to have that effect. But the girl hadn't reported her to the psychiatric ward, so Sakura was pretty sure she was in the clear. That would have torn their already shaky friendship to shreds before they had a chance to repair it-especially since Sakura wasn't crazy.

"That mark that he got from Orochimaru, it's a seal." Ino inhaled shakily, "A _cursed_ seal."

"A seal," Sakura repeated, putting down her bottle of tea. But that shouldn't have had any effect on his personality... seals could only limit, not change things.

The blank look on her face must have spoken volumes, because Ino elaborated. " _Cursed_ seals can manipulate minds, Sakura. With temptations, feelings. It's like a chakra virus."

Sakura went pale. _That_ she understood. The idea of something that had become so intrinsic to her becoming foreign and _speaking_ to her... if it had been her, she might have gone insane.

"D-does everyone know?" She had to ask. She had to know whether she was just that one idiot that went to the hospital every day because she didn't know better.

"No, I don't think so." Ino looked thoughtful. "I picked it up from one of Dad's conversations with a new jutsu I was learning." Then she frowned. "He probably knows that eavesdropped on him, but he hasn't said anything about it, so I think he knew I wasn't going to tell anyone. 'Cept maybe you."

"Thanks for telling me, then," Sakura managed shakily. She took a deep breath before picking up her tea again.

"I wouldn't worry too much about it. From what I hear, a bunch of the jōnin are working on it. Just be there for him. Positive reinforcement, right?" Ino smiled gently, before reaching for her own drink.

Yes. Positive reinforcement. So Ino had been the one that had tell her about that. Look forward, not backward. There was nothing she could have done against Orochimaru, except get killed. There was nothing she could do about the seal either... or was there? She hadn't even known seals could _do_ that. Then again, she hadn't known lightning was an element until she had read through her Academy textbooks, so she was probably missing quite a bit of information. She also didn't have a clan to tell her these kinds of obvious things, or to guide her to fix the gaps in her knowledge. And fixing it herself was too daunting.

But at least now, she had a teacher. Kind of. It wasn't like he had anything to do either, with both of his other pupils still in the hospital, so she almost didn't feel bad about bothering him. Even though she knew she would end up on the receiving end of one of those sighs that made her wonder why he had bothered to become a jōnin sensei in the first place.

"Forehead?" Ino waved a hand in front of her face.

Sakura recoiled, barely managing to avoid falling out of her chair. "Yeah Pig?"

"I'm serious. Don't obsess about it."

Sakura frowned. "I'm not obsessing over it."

"You obsess over everything that involves Sasuke-kun."

"That would be you, Pig."

Ino raised her darkened blonde eyebrows. "And who was the one that refused to share?"

"He's not an object," Sakura bit out, uncomfortable.

"Look, I'm not saying that you can't handle it," Ino made a pause here, which Sakura thought pretty much derailed the meaning of the sentence, "but sometimes you just have to trust."

"I trust." She did trust authority figures. Compared to Sasuke-kun and Naruto she might have well been Miss Teacher's Pet.

"No, you don't. The worst part is that you don't even admit it."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"See?"

"I'm perfectly sane." Sakura crossed her arms.

"I never said you weren't." Ino looked wary.

"The look you gave me after the Exams begged to differ," Sakura said dryly.

There was a pause. "I just wasn't expecting the voice, okay?" Ino said, sighing.

"What voice."

Ino looked borderline concerned. "The one that was screaming profanities when I tried to possess you."

"There was no voice." Sakura said flatly. She was pretty sure she would have noticed whether there was another presence inside her head.

Ino sighed again, and Sakura gritted her teeth. "Fine, there was no voice."

 _She thinks I'm fucking crazy!_ Her mind spat out. And she most definitely was not crazy. There wasn't another person in her head, guiding her decisions. There wasn't even a voice to discuss her actions with. She was insanely balanced. She hadn't declared her desire to be a murderer or Hōkage or anything like that either. She was normal. Well, ignoring her current status as a shinobi, she was.

"I. Am. Fine." She managed to bite out. "But thank you for your concern Ino."

Ino sighed a third time, but didn't respond verbally, instead distracting herself with her food.

 _I can't believe her! Does she think that she knows everything just because her clan deals with minds?_ If anything, it was creepier that the girl's most powerful jutsu basically involved subjugating someone's mind _. Yeah, with that sense of normal.._

She finished the rest of her meal quickly, ignoring Ino's gaze which was surely on her. After she set down her chopsticks, she was ready to gather her stuff and leave when Ino's voice stopped her.

"I mean it, Sakura. Positive reinforcement."

She could have cried tears of frustration about how kind Ino was making herself seem, when really, the blonde was the bitch in this scenario. Real friends didn't accuse one another of being insane.

But she held herself too high to bother squabbling about that again. Instead she said, "I'll always be by his side." _Without you needing to remind me_ , was the implication, and based on the look on the blonde's face, she had definitely picked it up. But the look in her aqua eyes was neither hard nor judging, just open and indecipherable, which made Sakura look away on reflex. She walked away heavily, not bothering with the light prim, steps that she usually attempted.

* * *

She found him outside of his bed, looking outside the window.

"It's sealed shut," she said unnecessarily.

He grunted, but didn't move from his position. She took his lack of outright rejection of her presence as a positive sign, and moved to stand behind him before losing the courage and sitting on the bed. From this angle, she could see the mark clearly, three black extended dots that marred his otherwise perfect-looking skin.

"Does it hurt?" She couldn't help but ask, even though she knew her chances of getting an answer were slim.

"Hn," he replied. She shrugged off her automatic frustration with his responses, instead attempting to figure out what he had meant. The muscles of his back still looked loose under his remaining bandages, so she was pretty sure that he wasn't in any sort of pain. So that had been a 'no' then.

"Have they, umm, figured out how to get rid of it?" she asked even more hesitantly, her voice barely above a whisper.

"I don't care." His vehemence surprised her, and she couldn't help but shiver.

 _Well I do_ , she wanted to say, but the words would never leave her mouth. Instead she asked, "How are you doing?" She cringed almost immediately after the words came out. He would never respond to that.

He didn't say anything, still staring out the window at something.

"What are you looking at?" She managed to raise the volume level of her voice to normal speaking range.

"Hn," he said. She would take that as a good sign.

"I, uh, just wanted to let you know that I'm here for you. And I care." She rushed the words out, blushing as they saturated the air.

He didn't say anything immediately, but he did turn to look at her. She would have counted it as a victory for not the hard look in his eyes and the set of his mouth.

"You don't really care."

She hadn't heard his voice in so long that it took a few seconds to register. "Of course I do," she said brightly. _Positive, positive._ "I l-"

"Shut up."

"But-"

"You're annoying."

She needed to tell him, needed to reinforce the fact that she was there to help him move past this, to go back to normal. "I love you," she said plainly. "But you're not being yourself."

He raised a single eyebrow.

"You were... kinder before," she managed before wincing at her word choice.

For a long moment, she was positive he was going to say nothing, and she would leave the silent room after a few more minutes like she did everyday, but he surprised her. "I was weak before."

"You weren't weak."

He scoffed. "To you, maybe. But to him..."

"Your brother?"

He grunted, which she was pretty sure implied an affirmative. She wasn't great at connecting the dots, but she would assume that he was the guy that Sasuke-kun was bent on killing. She had heard about the Uchiha Massacre. It had been impossible not to, even if she hadn't been enrolled at the Academy when it had happened. And it had been horrifying to hear about, let alone live it. She had asked her aunt about it once, when she had first been put on his team, and all she had taken from it was insanity and gore.

"You'll be strong enough to beat him in the future," she said, hoping that was a safe enough choice of words.

"Future?" _Again with the vehemence_ , she thought, flinching. "I need power _now._ "

She thought for a few moments about another safe answer. "How?"

He only grunted, and Sakura had about given up getting through to him when he muttered, "He's offering."

It took only a few seconds for Sakura to realize that he was talking about the seal. And Orochimaru. She shivered.

"You can't be serious."

Sasuke-kun crossed his arms.

"He's dangerous!"

"They're both dangerous," he said darkly.

"So what, you're going to defect?" The idea was almost laughable.

She was greeted with silence. Silence that spoke so clearly it was impossible to ignore.

"You would abandon us?" She looked hard for his reaction, because she knew, she _knew_ that Sasuke-kun was still somewhere inside. The one that protected her, dealt with Naruto's ramen outings...

He stiffened just the slightest bit, the cords of muscle on his neck becoming minutely tighter. "He attacked Naruto."

She stiffened. _Then why isn't he dead?_ Some dark part of her asked, and she promptly ignored it. "You.. can learn from Kakashi-sensei. He's strong right?" She could feel the desperation in her voice, and she despised it.

Silence. She sat there for a few more minutes before realizing that the conversation had ended.

"I... see you tomorrow Sasuke-kun," she said, before heading to the door.

He didn't respond.

* * *

She was panicking.

She didn't know how no one had noticed that there was something _wrong_. How had Kakashi-sensei not realized? Why had no one told her that Naruto had been attacked? How had _she_ not noticed until now? She could feel a wave of despair coming upon her fast, and it hitched her breathing, the air coming out in desperate, panicked pants.

"Sasuke-kun," she couldn't help but whisper longingly. She wanted him to stay with her, them, and love. Or even just care. She _needed_ him to want to stay with them, to need her as much as she needed him. But since he had said those words (or rather, not said anything at all), all she could dream about was an echo of emptiness, her eyes leaking the tears unconsciously.

After having woken up to a wet pillow, Sakura had decided that she needed to get herself together. She took deep, shaky breaths to calm herself down. She needed to think about her options. What could she do?

Ino's words echoed in her brain despite herself. ' _Cursed_ seals can manipulate minds,' she had said. Maybe, just maybe, it was the seal talking then. Sasuke-kun really didn't know what he was talking about. He would forget about once he went to sleep and woke up again. That must have been it. That was why Kakashi-sensei hadn't found out sooner and stopped this madness.

But Kakashi-sensei wasn't an expert on seals. She wasn't aware of anyone in the village that was. And while the thought of having to do this herself made her want to vomit in nervousness, there was no one else she would trust with Sasuke-kun, who trusted almost no one at all. She had at least done some preliminary research on cursed seals after her conversation with Ino, but the results of that foray had been disappointing at best. According to modern texts on cursed seals (at least those available to genin clearance), the mark's influence would only grow with time. She had at best a few months before the influence would corrupt his mind completely.

So she had about two months to get rid of it, or replace it with something else. Something that didn't whisper evil and abandonment in his ear under the guise of power.

* * *

A/N: Whew, well that was interesting. Feel free to guess how this story is going to turn out because I think I hinted pretty strongly at where this is going. It was incredibly hard to write Ino and Sakura's dynamic, but I think I've hit a vein that I like. Please let me know what you think. Ino won't be a main character by any means, but she is fairly important, especially since at this point she's Sakura's only friend (in case you didn't catch that).

We'll see Naruto next chapter.


	3. Chapter 2

A/N: I just want to thank my readers for their support (favorites, reviews, follows). It's amazing to have a story where **all** the reviews are more than a sentence telling you to 'update faster.' While this story will have a regular updating schedule, I'm hesitant about committing to weekly or bi-monthly updates.

Other things my readers should probably know: Since there are a lot of holes in the Naruto world, I'm going to have to make up quite a bit. This chapter will be the first of many to touch on the infrastructure of _my_ Konoha. The Konoha I have chosen to create is my interpretation of a Konoha where a girl like canon Sakura could have ever born from shinobi parents. Since this story is Sakura-centric, there will also be a decent amount of OCs, the most important of whom will be her aunt and guardian.

* * *

Chapter 2

There wasn't much on seals in Konoha, she was beginning to realize. Because Konoha, like most shinobi villages, didn't seem to believe in the sealing arts. There had only ever been one clan that had even specialized in seals, the Uzumaki, and they had been kicked out of their native village. She was willing to bet that this had been where Naruto's family had been from, and that was why as when she was a kid, everyone had seemed to avoid him.

Clan influence apparently worked both ways. She wasn't good at predicting its effects either-for example, she had had to ask Ino why Hyuuga Neji had been so vicious in destroying his cousin. How could she have possibly known what the main branch of the Hyuuga held over their branch members' heads? It was almost barbaric, but being a shinobi apparently meant hearing about this sort of thing on a regular basis. There were at least a hundred clans, both big and small, in Konoha, exerting their influences in all sorts of ways. Her parents hadn't belonged to a clan; they had just been a pair of nameless shinobi when they had been killed, and she had been raised as a civilian. According to her aunt, there was little point in being a shinobi unless you were clan. Especially if you were female. At best, you would be turned into fresh blood breeding stock; at worst, you died without anyone having ever heard of you, with no family memorial to commemorate your life.

Considering that she hated death, and she wasn't particularly talented enough to make it as breeding stock, her aunt was right to think her sick in the head. She had been given a free pass to skip it all, even after her vertical baby crawling, and she had rejected it because she had been unwilling to give up chakra when told that civilian school would be out of the question if she continued to use it.

At least she had made it through the Academy. She had been worried for a moment, because all of the other clanless kids had been orphans (wards of Konoha) or had been adopted by a clan sometime during their schooling, having caught the eye of someone important. By the time graduation had rolled around, she was positive that she had been the only clanless kid there that had graduated on time.

It wasn't something that she dwelled on often, but it was what kept her from feeling incredibly inadequate in instances such as these, where she couldn't even put her supposed book smarts to use.

She had originally thought that the reason for the lack of literature on seals was because of the perceived danger, but she was beginning to cross out that notion, if only because not even steps for the simplest storage scroll seal had been mentioned in the history books.

It had been over three hours, and she was still stuck with a blank sheet.

 _Blank sheet._ Her mind repeated.

Perhaps... seals originated from their users? That would certainly explain why the greats hadn't really needed hand seals. Not if all that was needed was a manifestation of chakra. Although that did raise the question of why _everyone_ didn't just bother doing that. But she supposed, it would be best to check anyway, by going by the shop that she usually bought her storage scrolls from.

And so she did.

* * *

"Hi," she said upon entering, even though the bell in the doorway had already announced her entrance.

"Oh, Sakura-chan!" The old man exclaimed in delighted surprise. "Haven't seen you in a while." Sakura vaguely wondered how the man had even remembered her name, but then recalled her hair, a bright beacon even among shinobi.

"It's good to see you too Urakami-san." She smiled before awkwardly lacing her hands in back of her.

"So what can I do for you? You just finished exams, right?"

Her face fell a little at the mention of the exam, and Urakami-san picked it up right away. "There's always next year, dear."

"I know," she said softly. It was rare to even be nominated for the exams as soon as they did, so she supposed in a way, it had been an honor.

"My son took three years, and look at him now," the old man said fondly. Urakami-san's son was Urakami-sensei, one of the many jōnin sensei from her year. She vaguely remembered being disappointed about not getting him before realizing that she had been placed on Sasuke-kun's team.

She smiled a little more genuinely. "Well, I'll keep trying. I came by today to ask about storage scrolls."

Urakami-san raised an eyebrow. "Something tells me this isn't going to be an easy question," he laughed heartily.

"You never know," she said with a small smirk.

"Well, let's go ahead and hear it."

"How do you create the storage scroll seal?"

"Hmm.." the old man scratched his gray beard thoughtfully before sitting back down in his chair behind the counter. After a few seconds he said, "It's a family seal, so I can't exactly tell you the details, but.." he winked. "I will tell you that it takes some imagination."

"Imagination." She repeated blankly.

"Whadya learn about seals during the Academy?" he asked her, gesturing for her to sit down on one of the barrels that lined the small shop.

She sat down, careful to cross her legs at the right place so the slit on her dress didn't ride up. "Not much," she admitted, after adjusting the red fabric a little. "They're not particularly thorough."

"Didn't expect they'd be. Have never been, even when I went there." His voice was all calming gruffness, and she began to wonder what it would have been like to have a living grandfather. She had never known anyone in her family beyond her aunt.

"Well, to begin with, seals are little more than helpful marking points to guide your chakra into specific shape for a specific purpose." He paused. "You learned about the basic elemental schools in school?"

She nodded, and he continued. "Those are the seals that some of the first shinobi decided most represented the element, or at least the state of body that best allowed that style of jutsu."

"But..." she looked up, to see if she was allowed to interrupt. Urakami-san just gently smiled. "If we don't make the hand seals right, the jutsu won't end up right."

"Have you ever tried different versions of the seals?"

"N-no," she said. Her memory had always good enough to not mess up something so simple.

"Don't tell anyone I said this," he whispered almost conspiratorially, light brown eyes almost twinkling, "but you should try it at least once. Just make sure that your mind is focused."

"But that doesn't..."

"Make sense?" He leaned back further in his chair, a monstrously large leather recliner. "Tell me, why would a jutsu fail?"

"The hand seals were wrong," she replied immediately.

"Why else?"

She paused. "Not enough chakra?"

"Given enough chakra."

She searched her brain for the information she had once regurgitated daily during the Academy."Lack of affiliation."

"That can always be overcome, my dear. Why else?"

Her shoulders slumped. "I don't know."

"Have you ever tried asking?"

She glanced over at the old man.

"Not me," he smiled again.

"I've never thought about it." And she hadn't. She had always been able to get jutsus the first time around. It was easy enough to memorize the signs and the order. Her weakness had always been the physical tests.

"Well try sometime. You may be surprised."

"Is that a code word for, 'and you'll find out the answer to the question you asked'?" Sakura couldn't help but ask dryly.

"The shinobi world is a world of secrets, my dear, and all I can do is guide you."

She was fairly sure that clan kids were given these so-called secrets on a silver platter, but she would never be able to ask any of them these sort of questions, not even Ino. What if the answer had been obvious the entire time? She would lose the one edge that everyone kept on insisting that she had: her mental ability.

Out loud she said, "Well, thank you then Urakami-san. I'll find someone to ask."

"Good luck, dear," he replied, waving as she left the shop, the ringing bell this time signaling her exit.

While Urakami-san had been kind, she wasn't sure she was in a better spot than where she started. Who could she possibly ask about failing jutsus who a) wasn't a teacher or b) wouldn't take it the wrong way? Though Sakura would always consider the most prideful clans those of the merchant persuasion, shinobi, she was beginning to realize, were a prideful bunch. Considering that she herself never spoke about her failures, it was absolute hypocrisy to expect her classmates to be open about theirs.

Which meant that she was pretty much stuck.

To begin with, the only person she knew personally that failed jutsus in _public_ was Naruto. She stopped for a moment. Naruto would definitely be willing to talk to her, especially if his feelings were actually real. He was also least likely to make her feel embarrassed about what she was asking, considering that he embarrassed himself on a regular basis.

She stopped to look at a clock. 16:45. Visiting hours would end in fifteen minutes, which meant she probably wouldn't have enough time to visit both Sasuke-kun and Naruto. But she could slip Naruto a note to meet somewhere... he had always been good at getting away.

* * *

"So why are we here again?" Naruto asked again. The blond had gotten over his initial excitement over seeing her almost obnoxiously quickly, but she brushed the thought aside.

"I just wanted to ask you something, okay?" She said defensively, hands on her hips. Damn it, she had chosen him because she had been sure that he wouldn't make her feel like a complete idiot.

"'Kay, shoot," he said, after sitting crosslegged in the grass under the giant shady tree she had told him to meet her at. They were currently at one of the lesser-known borders of Konoha that she occasionally came to to clear her mind.

"Why did your jutsus fail?" She had settled for leaning against the tree, but she was beginning to regret it, the bark rough on her back even through the fabric of her dress.

His face scrunched up in what she knew to be confusion.

"During the Academy," she clarified.

"I'm sorry Sakura-chan... I don't quite follow," he said, scratching the back of his neck.

"You failed your graduation test three times." She was beginning to get a little impatient. "Why?"

"How should I know?" He was starting to sound defensive. _Great_ , she thought to herself.

Sighing, Sakura sat down, careful to keep a proper distance away from him.

"Was it the hand seals?"

"I dunno."

"The chakra manipulation?"

"I dunno." His expression was now, if it hadn't earlier, bordering on sullen.

"You have no idea why your jutsu failed." She summarized flatly.

"Nope."

She sighed audibly, letting herself collapse backward into the grass. This had been a terrible idea. And she still owed him ramen afterward.

"What now?" His voice had an edge to it that she was fairly sure she had never heard before.

"I'm just disappointed."

"Oh." Now he sounded like she had kicked him. _Do something_ , her gut told her.

"In myself," she clarified.

"Oh." He didn't sound the slightest bit happy to hear that either.

Well, she supposed he would have to find out some time. And it wasn't as if she was doing anything _wrong_...

"I'm working on a seal."

The scrunched confusion face was back. She took this as a positive sign.

"The guy who's kind of teaching me about it asked me to find out why jutsus fail." She paused, wondering whether she should add the next part. "Since I've never failed a jutsu myself, I asked you."

"Because I'm deadlast." Naruto said flatly. Shit, this was not where she had planned to go with that.

"No..." she sighed, not quite ready to bare her heart to _Naruto_ of all people, "because I knew you wouldn't make me feel embarrassed about asking." Though now she was embarrassed, so that part of the plan had obviously failed.

"Oh," he said with a face that looked half relief, and half pure wonder. It wasn't unlike the face she had allowed herself to put on privately after passing the graduation exam. She turned away.

They sat for a few seconds in absolute silence before Naruto spoke up again. "Well, Ebisu-sensei said that I didn't have a good enough grip on my chakra basics."

Now she was the confused one. "But if you got all the seals right and had the chakra for it, why would it matter beyond efficiency?" She knew he had been wasting chakra-Kakashi-sensei had told them that much-but she still didn't know why that would cause the jutsu to _fail_ if he had enough chakra to deal with the terrible conversion ratio.

"Right?" Naruto exclaimed. "That stiff bastard didn't explain anything right."

Sakura raised an eyebrow. "But now, you can do all those jutsus pretty easily right?"

"Yeah, I guess," he muttered.

"So what happened?"

He was silent for a few long moments, and Sakura pulled at the blades of grass to give her hands something to do.

"Visualization exercises?" He didn't sound at all sure about the fact.

"About what you had to create?"

"Yeah." After a second he added, "The geezer said I wasn't focusing enough."

Well, she couldn't exactly argue with that. Naruto tended to have terrible concentration, very likely to be distracted by the most random of things.

"Hmm..." she said contemplatively. So Urakami-san had been right about the manifestation thing. She still had to wonder why no one else except for the greats had managed one-handed or single seal complicated jutsus though, if it really was a test of imagination and chakra. By that description, she should have been on the legendary track as a paper genjutsu type with better than average control. She gave a small laugh. There was definitely something that she was missing.

"Was I helpful?" he broke in, startling her.

"Huh? Uh, yeah, you were." She gave him a small smile. "I think I can figure out what I was doing wrong now."

"Che-yeah!" he exclaimed. She raised her eyebrows; even after having been on his team since graduation, she still had yet to understand his rapid mood changes. "So ramen?"

"Yeah, I guess," she replied. She had suggested it herself after all.

"The usual place?" She could hear the excitement in his voice without looking at his expressive face, but she looked to confirm anyway before looking away and sighing.

"Whatever."

But her words this time didn't seem to put any sort of damper on his mood, which was now decidedly buoyant. Rolling her eyes in disbelief, she couldn't decide which Naruto she disliked more: the sullen puppy or the bouncy clown.

* * *

A/N: As you may be able to tell, I'm still working on my Naruto/Sakura interaction. Her dislike of him (or unwillingness to get along well with him) was hinted in the last chapter, and some parts of this chapter. As there is no way she was never raised in a clan dynamic, I had to come up with a better reason for why she would be so against him than 'she followed everyone else.' Because that excuse would cease to hold water after they became teammates. I will warn you though that she's never actually going to admit this reason in her thoughts-that's not in any way Sakura-esque, for all her canon duplicity/hypocrisy.

It'll take a little while before we get to the full Team 7 interactions. The next chapter will be a little faster in the coming though. :)


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